HUNTSVILLE, Alabama – A panel of six experts gathered in
Huntsville on Tuesday morning for an extensive two-hour conversation on the future
of the Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, what their companies are
doing to support them and the role of industry in U.S. human spaceflight.

Moderated by Dittmar Associates CEO Mary Lynne Dittmar, the roundtable discussion took place in the Chan Auditorium
of the Business Administration Building at the University of Alabama in
Huntsville as part of the Wernher von Braun Memorial Symposium, which kicked
off Monday night.

The SLS, an exploration class vehicle designed for deep space mission, is being developed at Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville and is the first rocket and launch system in
history that is capable of powering humans, habitats and space systems beyond
the moon and into deep space.

"The current plan is fragile in the political and financial maelstrom
that is Washington," Hale said. "Planning to fly large rockets once
every three or four years does not make a viable program. It is not
sustainable."

As government budgets are stretched thin, Hale said it's "time to try new
strategies" to continue developing programs and avoid cancellation.

The panel, which featured representatives from Aerojet Rocketdyne, ATK,
Boeing, Dynetics, Astrium North America and Lockheed Martin, originally
included speaker Dan Dumbacher, deputy associate administrator for Exploration
Systems Development at NASA. Dumbacher could not attend because of the
government shutdown, which went into effect Oct. 1 and left more than 2,000
NASA workers furloughed in Huntsville.

Virginia Barnes, vice president
and program manager for Exploration Launch Systems at Boeing, said the SLS
program is still on track at Boeing and the core stage is ahead of the contract schedule by at
least five months in the wake of the government shutdown.

"We're held a little bit for
what's going on out at Marshall, but right now I don't see anything that isn't
recoverable with what Boeing is doing on the SLS program," she said.

Charlie Precourt, vice
president and general manager of the Space Launch Division, Aerospace Group at
ATK, echoed Barnes' statements and said his company worked with NASA in
anticipation of a shutdown to get free authorization to continue to do work.

As long as the shutdown
doesn't "go on for a year," Aerojet Rocketdyne Vice President for Space
Advanced Programs Julie Van Kleeck said she thinks Aerojet, a diversified business with
contingency plans in place, "will be OK."

"If it goes on too long,
at some point funding becomes an issue, but we're in pretty good shape
probably for the next month to two months," she said.

Dynetics Manager for Space
Systems Division Kim Doering said Dynetics is also on track for the time being.

"We have people supporting
Boeing on the core and they're still busy and working and productive," she
said. "We're providing instrumentation for the Orion and those folks are still
actively engaged. We did have to leave the Marshall building where we were doing friction stir
welding. While it's disappointing, that's not part of the core SLS program and
won't affect schedule."

The symposium will continue
through Thursday with an optional tour of the United Launch Alliance
Atlas and Delta Rocket Production Facility from 8:30 a.m.-noon.

Some of the topics to be discussed Wednesday at UAH include
the status of commercial and cargo crews, the role of higher education in space
evolution and privately-funded space activities. For more details, click here.